Trump gives the Confederacy more to celebrate

Jamie Dupree, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Aug 7, 2025

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WASHINGTON — There may not be another president in recent memory who has delivered more victories for the Confederacy than Donald Trump.

After getting rid of new names for U.S. military bases originally named after Confederate soldiers, the Trump administration this week delivered two more victories for the Old South.

On Monday, the National Park Service said it would bring back a statue in Washington, D.C., of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike, which was toppled during the Black Lives Matters riots of 2020.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said it would restore a Confederate statue to Arlington National Cemetery which features a Black “mammy” holding a white soldier’s baby and an enslaved man following his master into battle.

“It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“Joe Biden removed it to rewrite history and divide our country,” said U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, who hailed the decision.

The Confederate memorial was taken down after the Congress voted overwhelmingly in 2020 — over Trump’s veto — to get rid of various Confederate names, memorials and symbols in the military.

“Most of the people I served with can’t stand the Confederate names,” said U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who spent nearly 30 years in the Air Force. He said the base name changes made by Hegseth this year show a “lack of judgment.”

The move to restore the Pike monument was a surprise. His background includes trying to expel free Black people from Arkansas before the Civil War. His statue had been the scene of protests in 1992, when demonstrators draped it with a pointed hat and gown, as some claim Pike had ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

“Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts, not remain in parks and locations that imply honor,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, a non-voting delegate representing the District of Columbia, who is offering a bill to bar Pike’s return.

All of this news was a fresh reminder that a number of Confederate statues from Southern states have been removed from the U.S. Capitol in recent years. That does not include Georgia, which still has the statue of Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens — placed there in 1927.

We all know that Georgia can do better than Stephens, who declared in a famous speech that “the Negro is not equal to the white man.” But legislators in the Gold Dome have shown little interest in finding someone new.

During the Civil War, Confederate military forces never successfully penetrated the defenses of Washington, D.C. But courtesy of Trump and Republicans, the Lost Cause continues to win battles in the 21st century.

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